


this branch of mine

by aertisu



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Endgame, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-02-15 16:27:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18673306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aertisu/pseuds/aertisu
Summary: ENDGAME SPOILERS BABY.Steve is on a mission to return the infinity stones and meets some important folks along the way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is a multichaptered fic i guess? i don’t know what i’m doing i’ve been crying leave me alone. this isn’t betaed so if you see any mistakes please keep them to yourself
> 
> let’s be friends on tumblr ay @heykiden

There are unseen eyes watching him on Asgard. The weight is heavy, makes his skin flush and goosebump. The Aether back where it belongs - in poor, tired Jane Foster - Steve slips unseen from the palace and into the streets and he knows he hasn’t been spotted. He’s certain of it. 

All the years he’s known Thor, he passed over a hundred opportunities to come here, and now - in  _ his  _ now - it doesn’t exist. Towers stretch in spirals towards a beautiful, wide open yellow sky, and Asgard shimmers and glows against the coming night. It’s beautiful and it’s gone. 

Thor broke down, one night not so many years ago, after the first snap, and explained it was  _ Ragnarok.  _ Steve held the back of his neck as Thor hunched against him, forehead pressed to his shoulder. Steve told him the end of everything had come for them all. When Thor repeated, again and again, that he should have aimed for Thanos’ head, well, there was nothing Steve could say to make that better. 

He wanted to give Thor hope that night. Wanted so badly to light a path for them all, to come up with a plan, to  _ make it right.  _ But for days he laid in bed empty, hollowed out completely. Whatever was left of him turned to ash with Bucky and Sam, with all of them, and left on a strong wind. 

He laid there until the ghost of the cold Atlantic ocean rushed into him, froze him solid, and then Pepper was standing silhouetted in the doorway. She watched him thaw, inch by inch, his legs swinging off the side of a bed he had no right to be in. He’d found it just the way he left it, from the dog-eared book on the nightstand to the half-filled sketch pads piled in the corner.

There had been an apology in his mouth. For the last two years, for the years before that, for things that were still too fresh and hurt too much to name. It was selfish to wish he could have heard Tony’s voice, just one more time, but when the phone finally rang it was Bruce on the line. 

When he tried to speak all that came out was a low, deep sob, pulled out painfully from his chest, and he hadn’t deserved it but Pepper rushed towards him. Covered him with her body, arms around his shoulders, her cheek, as wet as his own, pressed to the top of his head. Steve felt guilty and ashamed, but he held her back, and she allowed it. Held him until they both warmed. 

It took him another three weeks to understand what had happened that night. Pepper  _ loved  _ Tony, and the pain that was eating her whole was eating up Steve, too. Pepper had known. 

Tony cut himself open along old scars, digging around his chest, and ripped his heart out to put it in the palm of Steve’s hand. And he’s been trying not to think about it, the way he has always tried not to think about Tony. It’s unfair, really, to punish himself when that’s not how they left each other. No broken pieces, not by the end, just  _ whole _ . Together. 

As he turns a corner into a dark, hidden alley, and starts to swing Mjolnir at his hip, he’s met with a pair of big, round eyes. They’re the same color as the sky. Steve jumps back, startled by his sudden appearance - he  _ knows  _ this man. Never met him, but knows him from Thor’s boisterous stories and shaken cries of regret. 

Before he can get a word out, Heimdall looks down at Mjolnir then back to Steve’s face, and says, “I’m not the only one who has been watching you.” 

“I mean no harm,” Steve says, and nearly rolls his eyes at himself. Way too close to  _ I come in peace. “ _ I’m only…”

“Passing through,” Heimdall finishes. “It’s a heavy burden to carry.” 

Maybe he means the stones. Or the hammer. Or the memories. The deaths of people he loves. The weight of being alive. Of being left behind to keep living. It doesn’t matter. 

“It’s a privilege,” Steve corrects. 

“Good luck, Steve Rogers,” Heimdall says, and steps back as he begins to swing Mjolnir again. “You have a long journey ahead of you still.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> now let’s see what’s shaking on vormir

On Vormir, Steve allows himself to entertain the thought - just for a moment - that what he feels is Natasha watching over him. Thor has told them all stories of Valhalla and Hel, not legend and lore but real places where the dead go. Some to wait. Some to rest. Steve has seen impossible things, has met aliens and gods, and his faith has never been shaken. It only grew. 

He believes in God still. And if there’s a place where good, righteous people go when they die, a place of peace and love and cleaned ledgers, he knows that’s where Natasha is. This planet is where she died, for Clint, for the world, the universe, and he hopes she’s with him now. Hopes she stays at his side, teasing, a sly smile on her face, as she pushes him forward. 

He doesn’t want it to be anyone else. It has to be Natasha.

At the top of the cliff, the clouds disperse to reveal a purple and red sky stretching out indefinitely, and a floating, hooded figure cut out against it. He’d been told the man was red. He can’t help but wish Clint had at least  _ opened  _ a history book once in his life.

It doesn’t rattle him as much as it should to see the Red Skull here. It seems fitting, somehow, that on his last mission he’d find himself at the beginning. His life is coming full circle, folding in on itself, and it feels like the end. It  _ should.  _

It is the end, for him. 

“Captain Rogers,” Schmidt calls to him as he turns and floats a little closer. “I could not have -.”

“Save it,” Steve cuts him off sharply. “I don’t care why you’re here. Or about anything you have to say.” 

He almost laughs at the look on Schmidt’s face. There’s a voice in his head - it sounds suspiciously like Tony - that says,  _ Nazi shithead.  _ He doesn’t bite back his laughter again. 

Steve kneels after a moment of basking in Schmidt’s frustration, pulling off his pack and taking out the case inside it.  As soon as it opens, the soul stone floats a few feet into the air between them, lights up the sharp edges of Red Skull’s face. If he doesn’t ask, he’ll never forgive himself. But, by God, he wishes it was anyone other than Schmidt. 

“Does returning the stone give me back Natasha?” Steve stands and reshoulders his bag. The stone still hovering just in front of him. “I’ve -.”

Red Skull laughs. It’s an echoing, dark sound that pulses through Steve’s head and chest, brings a unnerving  _ nothingness  _ with it. Hoping there was some sort of return policy on the stone was a long shot, the definition of foolishness, but he had to  _ ask.  _ Had to try. The world was better with Natasha in it. 

The universe was better than this, once. 

It feels wrong to leave something so precious and powerful with Red Skull. But this seems like a punishment, that he’s here, bound to this place, and that’s a small comfort. If he was able to take it, and use it, God knows he would have already. The stone shines for a moment before disappearing, and it’s done. 

His hand moves to Mjolnir at his hip - although it would be wiser to use the space stone, probably - but he hesitates. The eyes he’s felt on him since Asgard feel as if they’re now rooting him to this terrible place. Steve feels heavy and slow moving. He’s cold, covered in ice again. 

“The Man Out of Time,” Schmidt says. “What time, I wonder, do you belong in?”  

Steve thinks of Peggy. Her big eyes on him,  _ seeing him,  _  when he was a small, sickly thing who didn’t mean anything to anyone except Bucky. He’d belonged with her. 

Then, later, he’d belonged - 

His limbs unstick and he grabs at the hammer, swinging it once again by his hip. Whatever has its eyes on him isn’t Natasha. This isn’t where she is; It’s cold and empty and there’s nothing of her in this place. 

And he has nothing to say to Schmidt. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> time for a mental breakdown on morag lads

Morag is not a beautiful planet, but sitting on the shore where the waters have recently pulled back, it’s obvious it used to be. It’s been a long time since Steve’s drawn anything, but looking out at the ruins his fingers itch for charcoal. He rubs his hands against his knees, imagines the big stone buildings that must have been here. Traces the circular structures that loop tall into the muted sky. It must have been something, once. 

The stone was easy to put back - they’ve all been easy, so far, like the universe is carving a path for him. If that’s true, Steve’s grateful. He hasn’t experienced an ache like this since before the serum. Everytime he stops, even for a moment, the pain in his chest spreads, numbs his limbs and seizes at his heart and lungs until his breath catches. His throat tightens and he wheezes, and he knows this feeling, remembers what it’s like when his body is trying to kill him. But it’s not an asthma attack; Steve chokes and gasps and finally cries. There’s not a soul on Morag, or for light years around, who hears him.

But there’s still the overwhelming sensation that he’s being watched. 

Closing his eyes tightly, Steve leans back, opens up his chest, digs his hands into the wet dirt and takes deep, steady breaths. Distantly he knows he’s not having an asthma attack, that it’s panic clawing its way up his throat, grabbing tight around his neck. It takes a while before it passes. When it does, he leans forward onto his drawn up knees, shudders on every exhale, and waits for the fog in his head to clear. 

Morag is something else, now. All he can see is the smoking remains of the compound, the sky glowing orange from all the fires, the air thick with earth and dust, and leaned against a pile of rubble is Tony. His face is burnt, red and bubbling along his cheek and chin and the line of his neck. His skin so pale it’s almost blue.  And his eyes are open, looking towards Steve but not seeing. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. The eyes that have been following him feel softer, its gaze sliding across his face, tracking the fall of his tears. It only watches. “I’m so sorry. It should have been -“

_ Me.  _

__

The word sticks to the back of his throat, and his tongue feels swollen and foreign in his mouth. 

__

It’s true. Steve knows it’s true, despite what Strange saw in all those futures. If he hadn’t survived seventy years in the ice to save Tony from this, what was the point? Time - fate - couldn’t have dragged him across decades just for this. Just to fight by Tony’s side, together, and make it possible for him to  _ die  _ like that. To leave Morgan and Pepper and Rhodey and Happy bereft, when there’s no one who’d miss Steve the way they’ll miss Tony. No home Steve can go back to that’s as warm as Tony’s lakehouse. 

__

Tony was supposed to figure out the time travel. Steve was supposed to die, preserved in ice so he could burn in a later war. 

__

Whatever is with him on this alien planet feels disapproving now. A gentle  _ no _ ringing in the back of his head. He’d wanted it to be Natasha on Vormir; Now it’s unbearable to think it’s Tony. 

__

The next stop is the Tesseract. As terrifying as the idea is he could catch a glimpse of Peggy again, or  _ Howard _ , the only other option is 2012 and he’s not ready for that yet. The tower had been his home once, and the people there he loves are losses too new, still bleeding and too raw to poke at.

__

But first he has to pull himself up out of the dirt. If he could only get his body to move. 

__

He’s not going back. Bucky knew it before Steve did. The realization solidifies, turns into something real, and gets his heart pumping again. His limbs moving. He doesn’t have to go back to that place, that time where Tony is gone, the proof of his heart covered in flowers in a lake, across the world, a shield around the universe. He doesn’t have to go back until he  _ has to.  _ All of time and space is laid out before him, and with it, the option for a quiet life to grow old in. 

__

It’s Peggy he’s thinking about as he gets to his feet, tightening the straps of his pack, the hammer light as air hanging from his hip. He could be happy with Peggy. They could be happy together, and it would be beautiful. Every second of it. 

__

_ Well, you’re not wrong,  _ the voice in his head whispers. 

__

When his hand wraps around Mjolnir’s handle it sparks, and Steve thinks,  _ It seems to run on some sort of electricity. _

__


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> let’s have some flashbacks in jersey yo

Trying to hide one Captain America in 1970 had been difficult enough, two is ridiculous. He’s dressed the same as before - hat pulled low and big aviators - trying to hunch in on himself as if that could hide his stature. With the flurry of activity around the camp no one has noticed him, but he keeps to the walls and the spaces between buildings anyway. Just in case.

The step back Steve takes when he sees himself and Tony making their way across the yard is involuntary. Tony is still alive a few dozen feet away, and Steve is painfully aware of what it’s like to stand next to him.  That midday sun feeling and the energy that rolls off him in unstoppable waves. They’re walking close enough they could brush shoulders and it would only take a slight twitch of his wrist to touch Tony’s hand. His skin would still be warm.

There was nowhere to take the body immediately. When Pepper finally allowed it, Carol took Tony, held him gently in her arms, and Pepper and Rhodey followed in their suits to the tower in the city. _The suit,_ he heard Clint say kindly to Peter, _they have to get the suit off him._

Steve had wanted to move. Wanted to get closer, to hold Tony’s hand and say _something_ , anything, but mostly he wanted to help. It wasn’t until Thor touched his shoulder, and came around to look him in the face, that Steve realized he was crying.

“Okay,” Thor said to himself. Then softly, to Steve, “Okay. Steve, hold on. Come on now.”

It took a moment for him to understand what Thor wanted, and when he did he stumbled backwards frantically, his heart pounding, lungs tightening, because he couldn’t, _he couldn’t._ He couldn’t follow Pepper and Rhodey, didn’t belong there, wouldn’t be welcomed. Couldn’t. Tony is -

Tony _was._

The eyes that have been watching him, he can hear them say, _No, Tony is._

The panic that rose up to choke him on Morag returns.  Knocks him against the wall, the hard edges of the case and hammer in his bag dig into his back, and he can’t breathe. There’s no time for this - as soon as possible he has to get down there and replace the Tesseract and then, after it’s done, he can find another shore somewhere, another ocean to pour all his grief into.

“Easy, fellow. Easy there.”

Two hands grab at his shirt and hold him back against the wall. His legs don’t work, his knees are buckling, Tony is dead, Tony is here and alive, Tony is, _Tony is_.

“Deep breaths. There you go, there you go. Well done.”

The hands on him retreat but the man stays, he says, “You’re alright now. No shame in it. We all get overwhelmed from time to time, don’t we?”

 _You see,_ the voice says. It almost sounds like it’s laughing.

“Sorry,” Steve pants, straightening himself out and tugging his hat down a bit more.  “Sometimes I just can’t, uh, shake it. Thank you.”

“I’m here to help, sir,” the man says, and there’s something about it - about the cadence of it, his voice, the amusement wrapped up in the words - it makes Steve finally look at him. The man holds out his hand. “Edwin Jarvis.”

The laugh Steve chokes out is just delirious enough to make Jarvis’ eyes widen. It’s _Jarvis._ And yes, Steve sees, now. He’s kind. Caring, even for a stranger. He was Tony’s first shield around his tiny universe. His first friend.

Its easy to see why Tony brought him back, piece by piece.

Steve takes his hand and shakes it, says, “Sam. It’s nice to meet you. _Thank you_ , Jarvis.”

He wonders if Tony ever got the chance to say that.

Edwin Jarvis smiles, big and genuine if a little confused. He briefly looks down at Steve’s shirt and then says, “My pleasure, Captain.”

Steve smiles back and leaves before he can do anything stupid, like hug him or apologize for letting down Tony, who hasn’t been born yet but Jarvis will love so much. And will make sure he _knows_ it even when no one else will. Steve should have told him. Should have said it, for no other reason better than Tony deserved to hear it.

He watches himself come out of the elevator and the tension in his back loosens. His breathing comes easier.

 _I loved him,_ Steve thinks, as he tucks himself into the elevator.

 _You love,_ the voice says back. The eyes on him are sparkling.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kind of a set up chapter but here we are just stick with me please

After Camp Lehigh, Steve grabs the shield from where he'd stashed it and uses Mjolnir to take him home. From the roof of his childhood apartment building, the city seems just as out of time as he does. The towers were built in the 60s, and they were already gone when he came out of the ice. In the distance, there's a big empty place where Stark Tower doesn't exist yet. Everything is the same and different and caught between the past and the future.

It's sunny but rolling up over the horizon are purple and charcoal storm clouds. He'd wanted to find another ocean, and there isn't one that knows him better than the Atlantic. The water is rough, churning, and breaking white against every shore. Steve drops the shield, Mjolnir and the case containing the remaining stones, then falls to his knees. 

Whatever is watching moves with him. It gets on its knees too. And every pained sound that falls out of him it echos, grieves with him, a soft wind at his back. 

There's only one place left to go and two versions of himself already there. Steve doesn't want to see either of them. The him still thawing, so alone and angry and sad to be alive, to be forced into this world he doesn't want. And the other feeling something worse - hope, a small fire in the center of his chest. 

He could put 2012 off for a lifetime, if he wanted to. Live out decades with Peggy while a version of him is still in the ice. Find another timeline and another and another, until the serum starts decaying, until he starts getting old and maybe the pain of all this would be less, by then. A time when the possibility of seeing Natasha and Tony again would be a relief instead of feeling like a punishment. 

The voice in his head, that isn't his voice at all - isn't Nat, isn't Tony either - tells him it's time to stand up. So he does. 

There's no use putting it off.

Bruce leaps off the roof of the Sanctum, the time stone clutched tightly in his fist, and as if they'd known he was waiting, the Ancient One says, "It all worked out, then?"

"Yes," he says. He shrugs off the pack and within seconds the stone is back where it belongs. As if it never left at all. "Thank you for helping us." 

The Ancient One only tilts their head slightly, lips pressed into a thin line. As if they're considering Steve. Eyes flicking between his face and somewhere over his shoulder, like they're seeing something he can't. In the distance, the wormhole is still open, and he feels a pull towards the battle. It makes his arm jerk, an itch to grab his shield, to get involved, to fight. To always fight. 

"You've felt what's following you," The Ancient One says. It's not a question. 

It shocks Steve enough to draw his eyes back to them. 

"It's real?" 

"It is," they say. "You're going to be asked to make a choice very soon. Before the hour is over. You could have either." 

It's with the softest voice Steve has ever heard and he feels embarrassed by the honesty in it. They take his hand, a light but warm touch. For once he doesn't think about pulling away. Steve can't remember the last time someone touched him with kindness.

"Some aspects of time are malleable. There are many realities and, within reason, we can make of them whatever we wish. There are possibilities at your feet, Steve Rogers." 

The air feels thick, suffocating, as they let go of his hand. Not far away there's a crash, and an explosion, and Tony's suit catches his eye - red and gold and reflecting the sun. He can hear the distinct sound of the repulsors.

“I don’t know what I want,” he admits. 

“You will,” The Ancient One says. It sounds a little bit like a promise. 

A gold ring begins to open behind them. Steve takes a step back and then they’re gone through it, leaving him alone on a Bleeker Street rooftop.  Alone with whatever it is that’s been traveling with him. A presence not just in his head anymore. Standing at his side, just out of sight. 

Steve turns, knowing what comes next, and he can just make out Tony flying over the Verrazzano, coming up fast from the bay. And time stops. Not just with the way his breath catches and his heart skips but really stops. Freezes. All the sounds of the fight muffle until they’re silenced. The clouds and plumes of smoke stop moving. And Iron Man is still, suspended in air right above Washington Square Park, holding a nuclear weapon.

The thing that’s been following him takes a shape, too bright and shimmering to see properly, and says, “We should talk.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> you guys know about one-above-all or??

The figure sparkles, like the sun reflecting off a mirror, and it burns Steve’s eyes until he has to look away.  It doesn’t make him feel any better. The entire city is still frozen, maybe the entire world with the way it feels - as if he’s stepped out of reality, a skip in a record, a glitch.  The Man Out of Time.

“It’s alright, Cap,” the figure says.

The realization creeps up on him slowly as he takes a look at the man now standing in front of him: he never reached for the shield.  His heartbeat is slow and he’s loose-limbed, hands open and relaxed. The panic that’s been following him for weeks breaks free and dissipates. Leaves a growing calm in its wake.

Steve knows this guy. He’s wearing fatigues, dirty and torn, and Steve can picture his face lit up from the other side of a campfire, taking a long sip out of a canteen and swiping the back of his hand across his mouth. They fought together, maybe. But he looks like Sam, in a way - the same eyes and quick, easy smile. He looks like Bucky. Like all of the Howling Commandos.

“Who are you?” Steve breathes. And then, rougher, “Why have you been following me?”

“Why not?” he says around a laugh. The man leans against the wall of the roof, looks out towards the battle not so far away from them. The unmoving picture of it.  “You’re an interesting guy.”

Tony is still in the air. Steve hates to see him so still.

“You fought good,” he says. “Made a few mistakes here and there, sure, but you weren’t dealt the best hand this go, Cap. You never are. But this one was a doozy.”

The world feels golden and bright and Steve’s heart speeds up, just a little. A nervous thumping against his ribs and in his throat.

“I’m sorry, dear,” the figure says, and it’s not a man anymore. It’s a woman. And Steve knows her.

There was a candy store around the corner when he was a kid.  They had fountain sodas and a jukebox. When the Trolley Dodgers played the old man who owned it always kept the radio loud and let him and Bucky sit behind the counter and eat sweets as they listened.  His wife was a stout woman with rosy cheeks, who was kind and generous and always made sure his coat was stuffed with old newspaper in the winter, to keep him warm.

“Mrs. McCarthy?” Steve asks, legs shaking as he takes a few steps forward. “What -”

“I’m so _proud_ of you, Steve,” she says.  Her hand is warm, the way the sun is warm, when she presses it against his cheek.  She looks back at the battle, then at Tony, and exhales deeply. The entire world feels sad, just for a moment. “And Mr. Stark. All of you. I’m so very proud.”

“ _Who are you?_ ”

He asks again, although he’s terrified to think he already knows the answer.

_There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that._

“No, no,” she insists, but there’s a knowing and delighted look in her green eyes. “Well, not _exactly_ the way you’re thinking.”

There’s no way, Steve knows that. He’s seen impossible things, that’s true, but this would be something else if he believed it. It’s too big. There’s only one thing really makes _sense_. He backs away, puts some space between them, and even though he’s telling his hand to reach for the shield it still doesn’t move.

 _“Loki,”_ he chokes out. “You’re Loki. You have to be.”

“Loki is a bit preoccupied right now, buddy.”

His name is Joe and he runs the gym near Steve’s first apartment after he was fished out of the ice. He’d given him a key, because _if he couldn’t trust Captain America, ain’t no fucking hope for anybody._ Never complained about how much equipment Steve destroyed, just as long as he replaced it.

Always called him _the neighborhood kid._ Like it didn’t matter who he was to the rest of the world.

No, it’s not Loki. It’s the thing that’s been beside him since this mission started. That comforted him on Vormir and Morag. Spoke to him at Camp Lehigh. Wept with him just a little bit ago across the river, before his last jump.

It had said _Tony is._ Tony is.

And Steve _loves._

 _“_ Stark’s right there,” Joe says, pointing over a shoulder with his thumb. “Not past tense. Ticker’s still a little messed up but he seems to be doing alright.”

“He’s dead,” Steve clenches his jaw, tries not to remember but cannot forget how his skin looked. As blue as the sky and burnt black as smoke.

“Not always,” Joe says. “I know you’re thinking about going back to Peggy. You could. Every moment of a life with her would be beautiful.”

_Well, you’re not wrong._

“Or you could stay here.”

Steve doesn’t take a step back. There’s no panic welling up in his throat and his chest isn’t tight. All he can think is, _I knew that already._ And he did, somehow. Since the moment he left Bruce and Sam and Bucky by Tony’s lakehouse. It was the end of a fork in the road.

One path to Peggy. One path to Tony.

“It’s not him,” Steve says, and looks up to Iron Man. He’s hanging from the sky like the sun. “Not -“

“Of course he is,” Joe says. “A soul, whatever you want to call it, everyone only gets one of those. He’s the guy you just watched save the universe. And he’s this guy about to save the city.”

“It wouldn’t be right,” Steve says, but the banging in his chest disagrees.

“Why not?”

 _Because,_ Steve thinks, _because I already had my chance and blew it._ Because he doesn’t deserve another one, not here. Because he loves Peggy, has always loved Peggy, and wants a quiet life in the shade. Just her and him until his bones give out.

Joe says, “I bet it would be easier if you weren’t so good at denying yourself things you want.”

He loved Peggy.

It hurts to think it. Hurts so much his legs give out and he finds himself on his knees again. Steve isn’t the person who went in the ice, he’s not, he told Tony that years ago. He’s not even the version of himself fighting just a few long city blocks away.

That him just wants to go back to Peggy.

Steve wants to go _home._ To Tony.

“Who are you?” he asks again.

When he looks up it’s not a soldier, or Mrs. McCarthy, or Joe. The figure shimmers once more, gold and silver against the blue sky and all the universe behind it. It kneels next to Steve, their knees almost touching, and there’s no storm inside him. Everything is soft and peaceful and full of joy.

There’s only one path, now, and he’s been walking it for years.

“Does it matter?”

No, it doesn’t.

“Please,” Steve says, and looks up at Tony. “We were supposed to be together.”

The being in front of him laughs, a big, light sound like bells and morning birds. It says, “Yes. That is typically how it goes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this got weird huh


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is the real chapter seven and this story is longer than i was expecting but sometimes it just be like that

It’s after midnight when Steve finally leaves Stark Tower.

There’s no room to breathe in this timeline. The Avengers haven’t gone their separate ways - SHIELD, and HYDRA inside it, is making sure of that. Not only did they let the Tesseract and Loki slip through their fingers, the sceptre is missing too. As far as Steve can tell SHIELD doesn’t suspect him. They haven’t tried to apprehend 2012’s Steve. 

Which means they’re assuming that was Loki, too. 

It’s been two weeks since the Battle of New York, and everyday that Steve hesitates, the mind stone gets heavier. 

It’s after midnight and Tony will offer a car, the way he always used to. Steve will refuse it, the same way he always did. It was a different time, under different circumstances, but this seems to be a constant. Steve always forgos Tony’s offer. He hops on the 4, takes it to the Bleeker Street stop and transfers to the F. For three days Steve trails him and it’s a testament to how badly the other Steve is doing that he doesn’t notice. 

There’s no reprieve for him after the battle. No time to figure out his new place in this new world. Because of what they’d done, this Steve still hasn’t had the opportunity to come up for air.

At the next stop, the two other people in the car with them - a young couple - exit, and that’s when Steve sits down across from himself. The speakers ring out their two distinct tones, the doors close, the train starts moving again, and it turns out he hasn’t been giving himself enough credit. The man in front of him - it’s _him_ , looking younger and older at the same time - raises his head and meets Steve’s eyes directly. 

Had he always wore his turmoil so boldly on his sleeve? It radiates off the younger version of himself in waves, sharp and bitter and _cold_. Strong enough to blow out any warmth around him. 

“I knew it wasn’t Loki,” he says, his voice a tight wire. A drawn back bow. “When I woke up, I _knew_ it.” 

Yes, Steve can see how he would. They weren’t mirror images of each other. The suits, their hair, the wrinkles that have carved in around his eyes. Steve had just wanted him to _sleep_. Wasn’t thinking about the memories he was leaving behind. 

“I needed the sceptre. There was no other way,” he says. 2012’s Steve leans forward, elbows resting on his knees. “I’m sorry.”

“And the Tesseract?” 

“It wasn’t supposed to go down like that. Mistakes were made.” 

Past him takes a deep, hard breath, his hands fisted so tightly they’re turning red and white knuckled. Steve remembers that anger. The sound of his fists hitting the bag echoing around Joe’s gym. Every broken glass and faucet and countertop in his apartment. The way it burned inside him even when his skin still felt like ice. 

“You’re from the future,” he says and it’s not a question. 

“Yes,” Steve admits. 

They come up on the last Manhattan stop, the train rattling as it slows. The doors open and wait for no one then close again. And it continues on across the river. 

His other self is handling all of this surprisingly well and Steve can’t help but wonder if that _person_ he met on the roof of the Sanctum is helping somehow. Just softening the edges of this to make it easier. And if that’s true, he has no idea if he’s thankful or not.

He’s been trying not to think of that encounter. Doesn’t know what to make of it. It had refused to call itself God - but what else is something that claims to be the source of all things in the universe? In the _multiverse_? Steve only knows one word for that. 

But it’s difficult to believe, even if he’s accepting the being's help. The risk is worth it and Steve really has nothing left to lose. It’s slightly embarrassing now to think he’d begged for this. Just the opportunity for a second chance. 

“What do you want?” the other Steve says. He’s still angry, but now he sounds as tired as he looks. 

This is it. He has a shot and has to take it.

“I remember how this feels,” Steve says carefully. “The world you knew and everyone in it is dead. And those who aren’t are old and fading and left you behind 70 years ago. I know all you want is to go back. To dance with her.”

He looks like he’s trying to be furious but all he can manage is defeat, his body folding in on itself. Steve knows he’s a big guy, but looking at himself like this, he’s so incredibly small. Like a kid. 

“You want that, but I don’t anymore,” Steve takes a breath and when he speaks again his voice isn’t as strong. He gestures vaguely back towards the city, “I want to be here, in 2012, with them. I can help them. I can make right what we’ve done to this timeline.” 

Past Steve stares at him as the train switches tracks, screeching and swaying. The silence settles over them as they come up on the first Brooklyn stop. The doors open then close and their car remains empty, except for the two of them. There’s a deep crease between his younger self’s eyebrows, his corners of his mouth turned down, and his eyes are moving around the train car but not stopping on anything. 

Maybe he could have just done it. Erased this Steve’s memory with the mind stone and asked that entity to send him back, without the use of the device as it promised. He could have just _taken_ this life, using the stone. But that’s not how he wants this. It wouldn’t be right. If his past self says no, Steve will have to accept that. Have to find another reality, another branch, another life for himself. 

“You can go back,” he says softly. “We can get you back there, right when you went into the ice.” 

Finally the other Steve meets his eye, his chest heaving, he says, “You said - You said Bucky is alive?” 

Steve nods and his younger self’s eyes turn red, are probably burning the same way his own are. The thought of what it would have meant to him to hear that within the first months of waking up is almost too much. To be given that fragile, tentative hope, when he had nothing else. 

“I’m with you,” the other Steve’s jaw tightens, and he wipes away a few tears he can’t stop. 

“Yeah,” Steve says. “‘Til the end of the line.” 

Something unwinds in him as Steve passes the test. Whatever doubt he was holding on to is gone. The train makes another stop and it goes, once again, in silence. 

“Why?” he asks. “Why don’t you want to go back yourself? Why would you want to stay here?”

Steve feels flush with embarrassment, but there’s no use in being dishonest even if that’s what his instincts are crying out to do. He can’t explain about the time he’s spent mourning Natasha and Tony across space and time. All the shores in the past and future he cried in front of. Doesn’t know how to express any of it. 

He has to try anyway. 

“I fell in love with someone else. And I lost him,” Steve says, and a small smile touches his lips at way his other self’s eyes widen. “I’m not you anymore. My place is here. It’s now. Those people - they’re my family. If you stay, maybe one day you’ll feel like this, too. But I’m giving you a choice. You can have the things I couldn’t and I can still have the things I want.”

“I want to know everything,” he says. “Everything you know about where Buck is. Everything important.” 

His heart is beating wildly. It’s a drum in his chest.

“Is that - are you agreeing?” 

“I don’t belong here,” he says. “Maybe I’ll get used to it, maybe I’d fall in love and find a family and want all of this, but I _don’t_. If you’re giving me a choice to stay or to go _home_ , well, that’s not really a choice at all.” 

Steve’s breathing hitches, nearly stops, and he only just manages not to cry. 

He’s done enough of that. 

“I just want to go home, too,” he says. 

The train sways and groans once more as it switches tracks.


End file.
